3rd & Lindsley Show, Wreck On The Highway

I've been back in Nashville for a little under a week, and it's been a rather eventful almost week. First - my band and I played a benefit for flood victims last night at 3rd & Lindsley, and it went great! We raised some money to help some people in need of it, the band was ON, the crowd was great, we played our whole set, did Little Richard at the end, and Natalie Stovall came up and sang backup on one song (How Long), which was truly beautiful. I'd put up some pictures, but in my haste, I forgot to make sure I had someone taking some! Ooops.. Anyway, Miguel "Hefe" Cancino played guitar for us, and did epic work. Thanks to Kalisa Ewing, Rose Falcon, and everyone else who was part of it. Trying to book some more shows for during summer Natalie breaks.

Over the weekend, I got together with Ben Strano and played him all the songs I have in mind for the new album we're going to start next month. We had a very good meeting, discussed the songs, and I'm looking forward to the work we're going to do. I believe in this batch of songs, and I'm excited about making this record. Er, CD. Er...series of downloadable tracks? Whatever!

So to take me off my high of last night's show, today I got rear ended on I-65. In my car! God, you people are just.... Anyway, I'm driving down the highway, and suddenly these green and purple buckets fly out of the back of the truck about 8-10 car lengths in front of me. I wasn't on LSD, some person just didn't have them secured into his truck. I had just come onto 65 from I-40, and wasn't yet sure if the lanes to either side of me were open, so I just slowed down to avoid hitting these stupid buckets - they were big, like trash cans, could maybe have capsized my Sienna if I'd hit them at full speed. So I'm slowing down and WHAM - this truck behind me hit me as he was trying to slow down. Fuck. So now we both pull over, and I'm in a state of shock, like LT had just run me over trying to chase down a 16 year old cheeleader. And the guys from this truck are not even making eye contact with me, they seem pissed, like I had just randomly slowed down in front of them so they could hit me. The driver was OK, we exchanged insurance information. Then this woman pulls around and goes right up to them and tells them she saw the whole thing and they could use her as a witness. And SHE'S not making eye contact with me, either. Like I did something! And I'm in a daze and saw just a small dent on the rear of my ride, and the driver says listen, I'm OK with all this if you are, I don't even care, it's my bosses truck, are you OK? And I just looked at it all and said yeah, the damage seems minimal on both ends, I could care less about a dent and frankly I think it's the bucket truck's fault (who never even stopped, by the way), let's just get each others' info.

This was incredibly stupid on my part. I looked under the car afterwards, and the protective frame behind the back bumper is dented, too. And it did not even enter into my mind to call a cop, file an accident report. I didn't think about it and decide not to do it, I just didn't even think about it. A) I've never been involved in a collision before, so didn't really know the protocol. B) I found out afterwards that no matter what the cause, if somebody runs into you, they're responsible for having not been far enough behind to avoid the collision. No wonder the driver was being nice. All these years, all you think you've learned, but when something new happens, you still just stand there like an idiot. I called the non emergency police and they said you can't file a report with them once you've left the scene, you can only do it online, and things are much less smooth. I took it to a garage to have looked at, and don't think the damage is much more than cosmetic. At least that's what the mechanic - not a body guy, mind you - guessed, from looking underneath. But it's hard to tell. Going to fill that thing out, will keep you updated, if anyone's interested.

All this was on my way to have my guitar looked at to see how much its way overdue repairs are going to cost. I confess that my appointment there was still in the back of my mind at the side of the road! The good news is...it's not going to cost nearly what I was afraid it was. It was a day I've been fearing for weeks, months really.

So...an eventful day, an eventful week. I hope I didn't screw myself out of still having a smoothly functional vehicle with my stupidity.....but it wouldn't be the first time I screwed myself out of something with my stupidity.

Kim and I are going to Miguel's tonight - Wednesday - to have dinner and meet his new daughter, Sol. So awesome. Then I'm playing a solo set at The Buganut Pig in Franklin (a duo, actually - Miguel is going to sit in). Anyone in Nashville/Franklin, you should come out. 10 pm!